Although Donald Wexler was raised and educated in Minneapolis, he probably wouldn't want you to know that. It was at the behest of bon vivant socialite William Cody that Wexler begrudgingly decamped to the Coachella Valley for a six-month assignment building the Tamarisk Country Club. And before long he was smitten. In his eyes, the long, inhospitable stretches of California's desert were an irresistible challenge. His architecture—low-hanging eaves, folded-steel roofs, experiments in prefabrication—emerged from the desert nonchalantly and organically. Before his death last Friday, June 26, at the age of 89, Wexler was amused by his idolization. He was astonished when real estate advertorials bandied about "Wexler-like" as an adjective, refusing to brag when his ad hoc architectural innovations became a de rigueur building style, and, whenever possible, attributed his success to others.
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